We need new policies to get us out of an old economic hole

Note to editors: The following remarks were delivered today by Democratic Alliance (DA) Head of Policy, Gwen Ngwenya, during a media briefing.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) will hold its policy conference this weekend on the 5th and 6th of September 2020. At the conference the following will be discussed, potentially amended, and adopted by delegates:

DA Values and Principles to guide policymaking;

DA Economic Justice Policy; and

Policy Resolutions to inform future policy development priorities for the Federal Policy Unit.

South Africa was already down a deep economic hole before the Covid-19 pandemic. Now, months after the first measures were taken we are beginning to come to terms with the economic devastation wrought by one of the world’s longest economic lockdowns.

The challenges we face are not new, but they are dire. Organisations such as the World Bank have made clear that absent significant policy change gross economic inequality in South Africa will persist. South Africa has many economically damaging policies which need to be addressed, and we can be grateful that poor implementation has saved us from their full effects.

As a result, it is essential that as South Africa’s largest opposition party we take the lead in confronting the socioeconomic challenges facing millions of South Africans and to get behind a common set of solutions.

As we have shared when the documents were first released; The Values and Principles document is the social contract the DA would like to co-sign with the people of South Africa. It is the point of departure for the rest of our policy positions, and represents the basis which South Africans should expect all of our conduct to conform to, and which we measure ourselves against.

We have always said that we stand for freedom, fairness, opportunity, and diversity. This is not something we say and then forget about. This a chance to reaffirm these commitments, and others such as to a social market economy, evidence-based decision making, redress, and nonracialism, not only to ourselves but to the public.

This approach differentiates us within a political landscape where politicians are not known to hold themselves to a clearly stated set of values which can be scrutinised by the public.

The pandemic has heightened attention to inclusive policies. Our approach to achieving economic inclusion recognizes that economic exclusion is not driven by one issue, it is driven by several challenges including: poor education, lack of jobs, low savings and investments, inadequate public healthcare, high transport costs, lack of affordable housing, and unstable family units.

All these challenges work together to trap people and to prevent their upward mobility. These are the issues we will tackle in order to ensure that we have an inclusive economy. We can no longer rely on a policy of trickle down redress which assumes that the empowerment of elites will trickle down to the majority.

Statement issued by Gwen Ngwenya - DA Head of Policy, 4 September 2020